This story in Britain’s “The Independent” should be read by all who support what Israel is doing in Gaza. I’m printing a couple of clips here, but the whole story is worth reading.
Don’t get me wrong, I support Israel and its right to exist and I am absolutely against Hamas and its anti-Israel policies. But that is not an excuse for the Israelis to create their own Holocaust by killing innocent Palestinians.
Gaza: The death and life of my father
For Fares Akram, The Independent’s reporter in Gaza, the Israeli invasion became a personal tragedy when he discovered his father was one of the first casualties of the ground warThe phone call came at around 4.20pm on Saturday. A bomb had been dropped on
the house at our small farm in northern Gaza. My father was walking from the
gate to the farmhouse at the time. It was our beloved place, that farm and
its two-storey white house with a red roof. Nestled in a flat fertile
agricultural plain north-west of Beit Lahiya, it had lemon groves, orange
and apricot trees and we had recently acquired 60 dairy cows.My father, Akrem al-Ghoul, was no militant. Born in Gaza and educated in
Egypt, he was a lawyer and a judge who worked for the Palestinian Authority.
After Hamas took over, he quit and turned to agriculture. Dad’s father,
Fares, who had been driven out of his home in what is now Israeli Ashkelon
in 1948, had bought the land in the 1960s.During the second intifada and until the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the farm was taken over by Israeli settlers, but after 2005 we went there every holiday. In Gaza, the only escape is the beach or, if you are lucky enough, the farmland. My father hated what Hamas was doing to Gaza’s legal system, introducing Islamist justice, and he completely opposed violence. He would have worked hard for a just settlement with Israel and a better future for Palestinians. When the PA gained control over the West Bank, he moved to Ramallah to help establish the courts there.
My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain. But, in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father.
When you have read all of the article, start thinking about what we, as Americans who support Israel should do if the Israelis don’t listen to the complaints of the civilized world. They have been very good at keeping reporters out of the fracas, and this story reveals that there is more going on than they allow us to hear or see.
It is a lot like us in Iraq.
Thanks for this.
“It is a lot like us in Iraq.“
Actually it’s the other way around. You in Iraq have been a lot like Israel in Palestine. The Iraq occupation has been pretty much taken straight out of the Israeli playbook. :o}
Do you have a photo of the farm that I can forward on the net?
I saw it on the news the other day. What a beautiful isolated place.
It proves that Israel kills civilians where ever and whenever they want.
I wonder if they’ll keep the land.
Doubtful that they will keep the land. If they had wanted to keep any part of Gaza they would not have closed the illegal colonies and relocated the colonists.
The truth is there for people that are ready to open their eyes.
Origins of Terrorism in the Middle East
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/01/origins-of-terrorism-in-middle-east.html
Don’t forget first airplance hijacking.
Syrian civilian plane in 1954?
How about the first group in modern history to use terror for political change??
“People’s Will”
http://www.henrypavlovich.com/Russian-revolutionary-movements-and-Jewish-emigration-after-1881
Interesting, Mattes, but not sure what that has to do with Zionists, Zionism, or Israel.
The hypocrisy of zionists claiming Arabs being somehow “different” less evolved because they have chosen this type of warfare. It’s in the Jewish history as well.
OK, now I understand. Thanks for clarifying.
http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/al-fakhoura-school-bombed-42-killed.html
The big coverup….the hate us for our freedoms.
So far I have confirmed Israeli attacks on two U.N. schools – schools that were clearly marked, and to which the Israeli military had the GPS coordinates (I have heard they hit another one, but cannot confirm it).
Terrified civilians had gone to these locations seeking refuge in an internationally recognized neutral location. Many of them were responding to orders from the Israeli military to evacuate their neighborhoods. Confirmed death toll so far is 43, all civilians, many children. Forty so far were murdered in one U.N. compound alone, three in the other when they committed the crime of going to use the toilet facilities. The death toll will certainly increase as many of the wounded are critical cases and will not survive, particularly since they are not able to obtain medical care beyond first aid.
Everyone who believes these two deadly strikes on clearly marked U.N. compounds housing refugees were “accidents”, raise your hands.
Israel has a history of attacking U.N. compounds and other supposedly “safe” areas that are sheltering refugees (see above comment regarding Qana). They inevitably claim they were “acting in self defense” against “terrorists” firing from the U.N. compound, and independent investigations inevitably show that this is simply a lie. And aside from the evidence, the chances that U.N. officials would tolerate combatants from either side in their compound, let alone allow them to fire is somewhere between zero and zero.
If combatants were firing from the vicinity, how is it that the supposedly crack army of Israel manages to miss them, and make direct hit after direct hit on a clearly marked U.N. compound to which they have been given the GPS coordinates? And let’s say, just for the sake of discussion, that there WERE a couple of “terrorists” firing from the compound. How on earth does that justify firing on men, women, and children who are there because you forced them to be there?
The most moral army on earth, my ass! Purity of arms my ass. When are people going to wake up and stop buying the lies?
Many of them were responding to orders from the Israeli military to evacuate their neighborhoods.
Hmmmm…in the rewrite of history Israel will say that Hamas members forced these people to leave their homes.
I think I mentioned that. If not, I should have.
Yes, they were urged by Hamas to leave their homes to clear the way for victory, just like in 1948.
By the way, when you are being invaded removing your civilians from the area is very poor strategy. For one thing, it gives the invaders ready made shelter, food, water, electricity and toilet facilities. It’s kind of like laying out a red carpet for them and saying “come on in, and take over”.
You should read about Iraqi refugees going to Syria
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/